The Pittsburgh Press (August 26, 1946)
Retired Justice McReynolds dies
Rigid conservative opposed Roosevelt
WASHINGTON (UP) – Former Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds, 84-year-old bachelor and the most unyielding conservative among the “nine old men,” died Saturday night at Walter Reed Hospital.
He had been in ill health for the past year and entered the hospital early this month for observation and treatment. Death was attributed to a breakdown of the gastrointestinal system, complicated by bronchial pneumonia and “a failing heart.”
Body going to old home
Mr. McReynolds’ body will be taken to Elkton, Kentucky, site of the McReynolds’ old family home.
Funeral services will be held Thursday in the Christian Church in Elkton. Burial will be in the Elkton Cemetery.
Mr. McReynolds died a little more than a decade after he thundered from the Supreme Court bench: “The Constitution is dead!”
That blast, concluding his famous dissent in the gold clause cases, summed up the associate justice’s view on the interpretation of the Constitution drawn by his judicial colleagues during the last few of his 26 years on the court.
Retired after FDR re-elected
He retired February 1, 1941, shortly after President Roosevelt was inaugurated for a third term. The aging McReynolds, then 78, was compelled for reasons of health to give up his desire to remain on the bench long enough to prevent Mr. Roosevelt from naming his successor. As it turned out, he outlived Mr. Roosevelt.
Mr. McReynolds was born at Elkton, Kentucky, February 3, 1862, the son of a prosperous Secessionist doctor. He took undergraduate work at Vanderbilt University and his law degree at the University of Virginia, graduating at the head of both classes.
On the one hand, he appeared to the public to be a bitter old bachelor, stubborn on his views, soured because they no longer prevailed. But those who knew him best dispute that. They saw him as a man of great generosity and tenderness, a fine lawyer, a capable and honest justice, tenacious in his opinions but tolerant of others.